A brutal dog mauling in California left a teenage girl with devastating injuries after she was attacked by a pack of ‘large-breed dogs’ while out on a morning run.
Tracy Azpeitia, 17, was out jogging near her home in Newberry Springs on July 17 when she was surrounded and mauled by at least 10 dogs, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
The girl’s mom remembers her daughter asking a gut-wrenching question the moment she saw Tracy at the scene of the attack.
‘I got close to her and [she asked me] “Mom, am I still pretty?” and I said, “Yeah, you’re beautiful,”‘ Maria Azpeitia, told ABC7.
The incident happened just after 8 a.m. along the 30000 block of Newberry Road in a sparse, desert area of Southern California.
‘I thought she was going to be fine because she walks to her bus stop every morning,’ the mom added.
‘I never thought anything would happen to her.’
Tracy was headed to a workout facility near the community center. A neighbor heard the young girl’s screams and called 911.
‘Deputies spoke with the victim’s parents and learned the victim had been out jogging when she was attacked by 10 or more large breed dogs,’ sheriff’s officials said in a written statement.
‘The dogs bit the victim several times on her legs and arms. The bites caused large lacerations, abrasions, and removed flesh.’
A total of 16 dogs were seized from the area by San Bernardino County Animal Control following the attack. Investigators say the dogs were not leashed or fenced and are believed to have belonged to a nearby resident.
Tracy’s stepfather, Carlos Ramirez, said the teen suffered hundreds of bites across her body, requiring more than 500 stitches to close lacerations and wounds from the attack.
‘It was not one dog or two dogs, it was a lot,’ Ramirez said. ‘I mean, they bit every part of her body you could think of except for her ankles.’
The attack left her so badly injured that her own mother said she was unrecognizable when she arrived at the scene.
‘I didn’t know who she was,’ Tracy’s mom said. ‘She was so dirty, covered in dirt, so I couldn’t recognize my daughter. I recognized her bra, that’s what I recognized.’
‘I thought they ripped her arms off,’ the distraught mother added. ‘That’s what it looked like.’
Tracy was hospitalized at Loma Linda Children’s Hospital and has since been released, though she still cannot walk on her own.
A GoFundMe has been set up by Tracy’s family to help with her recovery and ongoing medical care.
‘She was getting ready to do her senior year of high school this year. Now, because of this, she has to stay home and go to several doctor’s appointments and rehab. Due to the trauma, she cannot sleep at night; she’s having nightmares,’ the fundraising page reads.
Local residents have since voiced growing concern about stray and unrestrained dogs in the area.
‘We have been in situations where we’re out walking, and all of a sudden dogs rush out from a fence, or out of nowhere, and start circling around us,’ Kristine Watson, a Newberry Springs resident, told ABC7.
The dogs are currently being housed at the Barstow Humane Society – about 17 miles from the attack site.
An investigation into the incident is ongoing.
The attack occurred just two weeks before a separate fatal mauling in San Bernardino, where a 51-year-old woman was killed by a pack of dogs near a local park, the Victorville Daily Press reported.